


Loathing Coast-to-Coast

by LittleMousling



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: 2008 United States Presidential Election, Competition, Enemies to Lovers, First Time, Hate Sex, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 22:00:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11860488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMousling/pseuds/LittleMousling
Summary: “I’ve never hated anyone more in my life than I did the Clinton campaign staff [during] the 2008 primary,” recalls former Obama aide Tommy Vietor.





	Loathing Coast-to-Coast

**Author's Note:**

> Please, I beg you, keep in mind that these dudes deffo google themselves on the regular. The fourth wall is our friend and compatriot! 
> 
> This fic contains people being very mean to each other during the 2008 Democratic primary. It does not contain people being very mean about either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, because that would make me sad. They do get in a few zingers about experience level and over-reliance on consultants, but nothing personal about either candidate. Also, I did some research, but definitely do not guarantee that any of the campaign stuff is remotely realistic or feasible.
> 
> Many thanks to vltfemmes for the cheerleading and readthrough!

It starts in New Hampshire. It coincides almost perfectly with the worst period of Tommy's life. Looking back, he'll say he was exhausted and miserable and filled with anger.

Looking back, he will not have a good explanation for this. 

He wanders through the hotel, looking for Clinton staffers, desperate to fight with someone. One good knock-down drag-out debate about how their candidate is the worst, that's all he wants. 

They're all in groups, celebrating. He's not stupid enough to make himself the target of a group argument; that'll make him angrier, it won't settle the rolling boil in his stomach. 

He finds one alone, finally, struggling with a recalcitrant Coke machine on the third floor. "Hey," Tommy says. "You work for Clinton, right?"

"Yeah, and we're gonna kick your ass," the guy mutters, not even looking away from where he's trying to force a crumpled dollar bill into the slot. "You got change for a dollar? I know all you Obama bros are obsessed with change."

"Sure," Tommy says, and when the guy turns to get it, he flips his middle finger out of his pocket instead. It feels immature and mean and exactly what he needs to get this guy riled up.

And it works. "Listen, asshole, some of us have actual successful campaigns to run and we need caffeine, okay? We can't all just run on—" he pauses to look Tommy up and down "—like, your fond memories of rowing crew at your prep school."

It's a weird burn but Tommy doesn't care: it's fighting back. That's all he wants. And the guy’s rounded on him fully now, attention on Tommy, eyes narrowed. He’s little, in that scrappy way that doesn’t make Tommy feel bad at all for wanting to nail him to the wall, verbally.

"You must be one of the hundred overpaid strategists telling her which slogan to switch to today," Tommy says, viciously. "Feel good about that?"

"I feel good about my future office forty feet from the Oval. Hope you like the Senate, you'd better get used to it."

Tommy steps in closer, glaring, trying to think of a comeback. He’s tired. He’s been tired for weeks, and it’s only going to get worse. “You’ll probably go join a lobbying firm when my guy gives your candidate a pity job as, like, Secretary of Agriculture. Ready to shill for the oil companies?”

“Just because you’ve got no options this side of Chippendales doesn’t mean we’re all one-trick ponies. Bro,” the guy adds, and pokes Tommy in the shoulder. 

Tommy’s whole body is on edge. His blood is racing, his chest squeezed. He’s breathing too loudly in the little vending room, and he’s desperate to do—something. He’s not going to punch this guy, he doesn’t even want to, he just wants to, to—

“Oh,” the guy says, suddenly. His eyes have dropped, and Tommy watches as his hand follows them, to the ridiculous bulge in Tommy’s khakis. “Fucking frat bro closet cases,” he mutters, and pushes Tommy back into the dark corner behind the ice machine. Tommy lets himself be pushed. He doesn’t know why. He chooses not to know why. 

“After we kick your ass,” the guy says, pulling Tommy’s dick out of his pants, “I’m going to find you and make you blow me.”

“I’d bite you,” Tommy says, viciously, and gets his own hand into the guy’s waistband, and his mouth on the soft skin of his neck. 

The guy squeezes too hard, like he’s trying to punish Tommy for the comment, but it feels amazing. “You’ll be fucking toothless by the time we’re done dragging your campaign through the trenches,” he says. “You’ll be running back to your Kennedy compound or wherever—ah, fuck—wherever you came from with your tail between your legs.” 

Tommy bites his throat, and the guy grabs his hair and yanks him back. “Don’t be stupid,” he says. 

His hand in Tommy’s hair is almost as good as the hand on Tommy’s dick, and Tommy strokes him harder, because he does not want to have to deal with this guy outlasting him. He doesn’t know what the guy likes—no, he doesn’t _care_ what the guy likes—but in the interests of expediency and not being the only short-fused one at the party, he gets his other hand in the game, fingertips pressing on his asshole through his sweatpants. 

“Of course that’s your go-to move, you heteronormative—fucking press harder if you’re going to, for fuck’s sake.” This guy is the king of mixed messages, but Tommy presses harder, rubs his thumb further forward until the guy groans, dropping his grip on Tommy’s hair and tilting his forehead into Tommy’s shoulder. 

Their hands are knocking together in the tight space between them, and Tommy would normally offer to take over and stroke them both together, but he’s not offering anything to the, like, enemy. They can just hurt their fucking wrists. “When we win I’m not going to find you at all,” Tommy gasps. It’s the meanest thing he can think of; his head is swimming with the alternatives. Find him and claim his own blowjob. Find him and fuck him through the wall. Find him and—Jesus, Tommy’s got to get off and get out of this situation, this is fucking insane. 

“Good,” the guy spits, and bites down on Tommy’s shoulder through his shirt. His hand stutters on Tommy’s dick and Tommy feels his come pulsing through his fingers. “Fuck.”

“Fucking don’t stop,” Tommy says, and the guy squeezes him again. Tommy’s not about to tell him it’s not working as a punishment technique. He’s just glad the guy hasn’t dropped his dick and run off. 

The guy grabs Tommy’s wet hand and wraps it under his own, sliding their fingers together on Tommy’s dick. Tommy groans and presses his face into the side of the ice machine as he comes. 

“When someone asks you why you have semen on your slacks, you can tell them Jon Lovett blew your mind.” 

Tommy blinks at him, tucks himself back into his pants and zips up. “Did you, like, workshop that one for very long? Because it sucks. I hope you got your consulting fee up front.” 

“Shut up, I’m tired. And you’re not even on the fucking ballot in Michigan, let’s not pretend you’re a real campaign. We’re going to beat you in Nevada and every state from now until you’re advising him on how to gracefully concede, you—” He pauses, eyebrow visibly raised even in the dim light back here.

“Tommy,” Tommy says, because it seems to be what he’s asking. “The guy you’ll be blowing at the convention when your candidate gives a speech about uniting behind mine.” 

“Thought you weren’t going to find me,” Jon says. “I guess I can’t expect consistency from the fresh-behind-the-ears campaign, though.” 

Tommy suddenly has to fight the urge to grin. This is what he wanted. Not the handjob, although he’s not complaining, but the kind of sparring that lets him calm down, that takes the pressure down to something he can handle. “I ran point in Iowa,” he says. “We fucking destroyed you in Iowa.”

“Caucuses,” Jon snorts. “Please.” 

Tommy feels like he could go a hundred rounds like this. He feels like he could go another round of handjobs, actually, too. “If you think—”

“Lovett?” someone says from the hallway. “Are you … okay?”

Jon clears his throat and steps backward into the light. “Just trying to flatten my dollar bill for the machine,” he says. “Do you have any quarters?”

“Sorry,” she says. “I think they sell pop at the convenience store off the lobby, though.”

“That’ll work,” Jon says, and disappears from Tommy’s view. He hears footsteps receding, the ding of the elevator, the muffled laugh of the woman as the doors close. 

He tips his head back against the wall. Well. Not a bad argument, all things considered.

***

Tommy’s still angry when they roll into Nevada. Tommy’s mostly forgotten what it feels like not to be angry. Angry is better than depressed—that’s what he tells himself in the morning when it feels impossible to get out of bed. 

It doesn’t help that the first thing he sees after dropping off his luggage is Jon fucking Lovett. 

He’s with people this time, at the hotel bar. They look happy and relaxed; early results are favoring Clinton. Tommy wants to haul him into a dark corner and scream at him. His stupid, smug face looks—okay, tired, but not half as tired as Tommy feels. Not half as tired as he should be. 

“I hate that guy,” Tommy tells Dan. Dan looks at him, concerned. 

“You know, you can take the night off. You should get some sleep, we have to do TV in the morning.”

“Local TV,” Tommy mutters.

Dan looks almost upset at that, but Tommy’s gotten bad, these last few weeks, at taking things back when he goes too far. “Yes. Local TV. Which, if you fuck it up, will be replayed nationally, so get your shit together, Vietor.” 

“Yeah, Vietor,” says a voice behind him. It’s Jon, and he sounds most of the way to drunk. He’s carrying a near-empty glass of something dark, piled high with ice so fresh the corners still look sharp. “Get your shit together.”

“Fuck off,” Tommy tells him. “Aren’t you busy getting drunk with your buddies and crowing about the last state you’re going to win?”

Dan sidles away, not very casually. Tommy doesn’t care. He’s busy now. 

“I think you pronounced ‘the last three states we won’ wrong,” Jon says. “And fucking move, you’re blocking traffic.”

Tommy moves, but only because he’s trying to get his next line just right in his head. He gets it in the hallway by the elevators. “It’s pathetic that you’re pretending Michigan actually matters. No delegates and all the press is about the scheduling fight, not your candidate.”

Someone else waiting for the elevator harrumphs. Tommy makes sure it’s not a reporter, and then rounds on Jon again. “And you’re—” 

“Fucking shut up, there’s an audience,” Jon hisses. Tommy gets on the elevator with him. He doesn’t even know where they’re going. Somewhere they can yell, maybe. That would be good. 

They get out on the fourteenth floor—technically the thirteenth, Tommy notes absently, because this is one of those hotels that doesn’t have a thirteenth. Stupid superstitious nonsense. Jon key-cards them into a room with the curtains drawn, dim and unimpressive. “Michigan has seventeen electoral votes, you cretin,” Jon says, wheeling on him and dropping the key card on the floor. That’s a level of slob Tommy’s never witnessed before, and he lived in dorms for four years.

“Jesus, does your mother follow you around picking your shit up?” he says, interrupting Jon’s next remark, and reaches past him to pick the key card up and drop it on the dresser. “Are all of the Clinton staffers overgrown toddlers, or is it just you?”

Jon’s face doesn’t go red the way Tommy’s does, but it fills with anger in its own way: brows beetling, jaw clenching, the vein in his forehead standing out. “Listen, you overpaid golf caddy, some of us are busy doing our intellectual jobs instead of looking pretty on the Sunday shows, okay?”

Tommy smirks. “Oh, so you know who I am now, huh?” He doesn’t say anything about “pretty,” because that’s dangerous fucking territory. “Googled me? You getting nervous about the competition?” 

“If your idea of competition is a guy who graduated from law school like four days ago, against a woman who’s got more qualifications in her pinky finger than he’ll ever have, good fucking luck to you.” Jon’s chin is up; they’re both in almost fighting stances, feet braced apart, neither of them quite facing the other.

Tommy wants to bite him again. He wants to know why they’re in this fucking hotel room when they could have had this argument in a dozen other places, as long as they weren’t going to touch each other this time. “Good fucking luck to you, too, Jon.” He spits the name out, because he didn’t have an insult to hand fast enough.

“You can call me Lovett,” Jon says. “We’re not friends.”

“I wouldn’t be friends with anyone from your slimy, underhanded joke of a campaign,” Tommy tells him, and means every fucking syllable of it. “Don’t worry.” 

“I loathe you,” Jon says. “Get your fucking pants off.”

Tommy mutters, “I detest you,” irritated that Jon already took the stronger word. He needs to look up some fucking Shakespearian insults. His tenth-grade English teacher had a mug covered with them, but he can’t remember any right now, maybe because the blood’s been leaving his brain since he saw Jon sitting at the bar looking smug and punchable and kissable. 

He takes his pants off.

“Listen, if you’re desperate to get your hands on me, I get it,” Tommy starts, but Jon just rolls his eyes and pushes Tommy down on the bed. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Jon says. “Your mouth is clearly made for better things.” Something in the phrasing of it makes Tommy’s breath catch, and maybe Jon hears it, because his expression turns predatory. “You’re gonna suck me off and like it, you—anthropomorphized sweater vest.”

Tommy almost, almost laughs. It makes him angrier than ever. “Like I want your tiny dick in my mouth,” he says.

“Don’t worry, I know you’re going to be shit at it.” Jon’s yanking his own fly open, pulling his dick out. It’s no tinier now than it was in New Hampshire; actually, it’s stupidly similar in shape and size to Tommy’s own dick. He has a weird flash in his head to Joey from Friends saying “hand twins!” and pushes it away. Tommy’s brain has too much fucking nonsense in it. It’s why he can never fucking sleep. “I’m not expecting anything except your throat’s gonna be warm. You closet-case prep-school fuckers are never any good.”

Tommy knows he’s being goaded. He fucking _knows_. But it works. “I’ll fucking show you good,” he grits out, and rolls them, tightening his fingers into Jon’s hips as he goes. He’s not letting the smug asshole fuck his mouth; he can keep his ass on the goddamn bed. He can feel Jon’s hipbones under his thumbs and he digs them in angrily, hard enough that Jon honks out an explosion of breath. That’s more like it. 

It’s been a while, but it’s whatever, it’s like riding a bike. Tommy is going to fucking Lance Armstrong this blowjob. Yellow jersey all the fucking way, just like his candidate is gonna roll into the convention forty klicks ahead of the nearest competitor. He’ll make that point to Jon in a minute; right now, his mouth’s about to be full. 

Jon’s dick is nice close up, which is irritating. It’s almost pretty, symmetrical and not as grossly red-purple as Tommy feels like his own gets. Jon trims, which is definitely something Tommy will razz him about later, because who the fuck has time to get the clippers out on the campaign trail, but it’s at least handy for not getting pubes in his teeth when he tries, and sort of fails, to go all the way down. 

“Don’t choke to death,” Jon mumbles. “Your candidate can’t afford that kind of scandal.” 

Tommy tries to pull off to retort, but Jon’s hand is in his hair again, yanking him back down, and Tommy just goes with it, because—because, fine, he likes having his hair pulled and apparently Jon’s figured that out. 

Jon’s heavy and warm in his mouth and Tommy tries to focus on proving him wrong, just like they’re going to prove him wrong about this campaign. He’s going to make Jon fucking beg for this the next time they see each other. Or … not that Tommy’s ever going to bother to see Jon again, obviously. Because he’s the fucking worst.

It’s hard to keep from rocking his hips against the bed with the way Jon’s fist is tight in Tommy’s hair, the way his cock is thick on Tommy’s tongue, and he gives up eventually and lets it happen. “You’re like a fucking teenager. If I didn’t know better I’d think you actually were one,” Jon says. “Rash and horny and rubbing off on the fucking bedspread.”

Tommy rubs off harder. He hates Jon. He hates how hard it makes him when Jon is mean to him. He hates everything, especially how much he wants Jon to come and to think Tommy did a good job. He hates how much he wants to come. 

When Jon comes, almost silent, fingers scratching into Tommy’s scalp, Tommy swallows it, and then immediately regrets losing the chance to spit right into Lovett’s stupid face. “I only,” he says, and gasps for more breath. “I only swallowed because I wouldn’t want to mess up this nice hotel room when your candidate probably can’t afford to pay for damage.”

“Do they not teach you fuckers the concept of afterglow?” Jon says, weaker than his usual taunts. He grabs at Tommy’s shoulder, yanking him upward, and Tommy goes, groaning when his dick loses contact with the mattress. 

Jon’s hand on him is perfect. Terrible. Perfect. Tommy’s head is a fucking mess, and he bows it against Jon’s shoulder and thrusts into his grip, feels Jon’s nails on his back. 

He comes all over Jon’s bare thighs, can almost see it in his mind’s eye. Wants to see it, and then, as the orgasm rolls away, hates himself for wanting that. He shoves off Jon and rolls onto his back. “We’re going to rip you apart in South Carolina.”

“Bring it,” Jon says. “Get the fuck out of my room.”

Tommy gets the fuck out of his room.

***

He tries to stay away from Jon, after that. It doesn’t work.

Jon knows too many of his weaknesses, now, and Tommy doesn’t feel like he’s learned any of Jon’s. “You prep-school douchebags can’t fuck for shit,” Jon says, and just like that, Tommy’s rising to the bait, balls-deep in Jon and scratching up his chest. 

He tries to take his own pleasure, ignore Jon’s, but everything he does seems to work for Jon. “Slut,” he tries, feeling shitty even as he says it, but even that doesn’t work; Jon shudders and bucks back against him. Tommy doesn’t try it again.

They win in South Carolina. Jon tells him, “You WASP closet cases never let anyone fuck you,” and Tommy rolls the condom onto Jon with his mouth just to prove he can. He gets fucked, and he goes back to his hotel room and answers emails from reporters, and once again puts everything with Jon into a little box in his head labeled “don’t touch.”

Super Tuesday looms. Everything looms. Tommy hasn’t had six hours’ consecutive sleep since 2007. Sometimes he jerks off thinking about Jon. Sometimes he jerks off imagining Wolf Blitzer saying “President Barack Obama.” Sometimes he can’t get hard at all, and he orders room service instead.

***

They’re in different cities until late February. Tommy’s restless and sarcastic, enough that everyone notices, enough that the candidate snaps at him, once. Once is more than enough. It burns through Tommy, shames him until he’s sure he’ll remember how this feels for the rest of his life. 

It doesn’t make him stop. 

He tries to talk to Favs—not openly, but as subtle as he can manage. “I keep running into this fucking Clinton staffer who's such a goddamn monster that I just can't stop thinking about—uh, them—and how—they—need to just, just _shut up_.” He manages to stop talking before “and suck my cock” comes out, at least. It’s not quite what he’d meant to say when he pulled Favs aside, and he’s not sure “subtle” is actually a fair term for it.

“Okay,” Favs says, calmly. “Have you tried just avoiding them?”

Tommy gives up. Favs doesn’t get it at all. 

Avoiding Jon isn’t an option. It isn’t an option after Super Tuesday, when they almost come to blows over who had the better night. It isn’t an option after Texas, when they argue for so long over whether the primaries (Jon) or the caucuses (Tommy) mean more that they don’t get around to even touching each other until nearly two in the morning, and then exchange hurried handjobs in the hotel stairwell. 

It isn’t an option in Mississippi, where Jon seems hunted, and won’t go within five feet of Tommy outside a locked door, but is a monster inside Tommy’s hotel room, and rides him so well Tommy thinks they wake up the whole floor. 

“We won the most racist state in the fucking country,” Tommy tells him, after, both of them lying sweaty across the coverlet. “You don’t stand a chance.”

“You won a state with a huge black population,” Jon corrects, and then makes an annoyed sound, like he’s conceded too much. “Anyway, you have a tiny, stupid dick.”

“So do you,” Tommy says, and falls asleep while Jon lets himself out.

***

The end of March is—shitty. Shittier than Tommy wants it to be. Reverend Wright resigns from the campaign; Hillary fucks up a story about sniper fire in Bosnia. Tommy hates all of it. He wants to be out there fighting McCain, who’s locked in now as the GOP nominee and has all the benefits that entails. 

Tommy’s tired. He’d thought he knew what tired was in January. March Tommy thinks January Tommy was a lucky sonofabitch. The only thing March Tommy has going for him is that sometimes he gets to fuck Jon Lovett, and even that’s not keeping him going as much as he needs. Coffee, hatefucking, and the fervor of the true believer: that’s all Tommy has left. Sometimes he worries about the last one. If he loses his faith in his candidate, he’s going to spiral, and he’s already too far down. 

In Grantham, PA, Tommy eats Jon out until he cries, and then makes fun of him for crying, and then goes back to his hotel room and almost, but doesn’t, cry. 

Tommy thinks, once or twice or a dozen times, that the human body isn’t meant for what they’re doing. That campaigning is destroying all the parts of him worth having, and leaving a shell behind. 

Tommy thinks, more often than that, that they just need to win. They’ll win, and he’ll sleep, and it will all be all right. 

Tommy thinks, with his thumbs on Jon’s ass and his tongue hard at work, that hate is a complicated emotion, and sometimes he loses the thread of it. 

In Philadelphia, Jon blanks him. He walks past as though Tommy isn’t there, and then does it again, just in case Tommy missed it the first time. Tommy thinks about picking up some other Clinton staffer—he could, he knows he could—and then he goes up to his room and tries to sleep, instead. It doesn’t work.

Hillary wins Pennsylvania. Tommy tries to blank Jon right back, after, and ends up blowing him in a storage closet instead, fingers so tight on Jon’s thighs he leaves purple marks behind.

They win North Carolina. Jon isn’t there. They lose West Virginia. Jon isn’t there. They win Oregon and lose Kentucky. Jon isn’t there. 

“I need a number,” Tommy tells one of his contacts, not fucking around. “Off the record. Staffer on the Clinton campaign, Jon Lovett.”

The reporter shrugs. “I don’t think he’s a spokesman,” she says.

“But you could get it.” 

She raises an eyebrow. “In exchange for what?”

Tommy bites the inside of his cheeks. This—this is going to be what gets him turfed out, if he’s not fucking careful. “Ten minutes’ advance warning on the next embargo,” he says. “Take it or leave it.” 

She shrugs. “It’s 212—”

“I thought he wasn’t a spokesman?” Tommy breaks in.

“Yeah, but he’s a fun guy to drink with,” she says. “You want the number or not?”

Tommy takes it.

 _did she fire you for incompetence_ is Tommy’s opening text. It doesn’t get a response for hours, and he bites his nails, telling himself it wasn’t too mean, it was just—mean. The kind of mean they always are. 

_Pneumonia_ , he gets back, finally, and he feels his chest loosen. _You care or something?_

 _Wanted to be sure I could dance on your grave_ , Tommy sends back. _What’re my odds?_

 _Sorry, Moet-breath. I’ll be back in action by the weekend._

The campaign takes a breather in late May. Not the candidate; he’s in three states in four days. But Tommy’s been told to stay put, and his Blackberry’s been taken away to try to force a weekend on him. It’s unbearable. 

He goes to the hotel bar, because watching CNN is making him crazy.

Jon’s there. Of course, Jon is there.

Tommy sits next to him, silently, and orders a whisky. Jon has something pink and fruity, and he’s downing it like usual. Tommy gestures to the bartender to get Jon another one, and Jon quirks his mouth and accepts it. 

CNN’s on in the corner of the bar. Neither of them look at it. The wood of the bar is far more interesting. 

The momentum's been swaying towards Obama pretty seriously the last couple of weeks, and it feels—too real to say his usual mean stuff to Jon. Maybe it’s the sleep he had last night, but it feels like it would cross some line he wouldn't be able to uncross, and for once he actually cares about shit like that, even with this guy he definitely hates. Probably hates. Mostly hates.

They're silent, instead. Jon transitions to Miller Lite. Tommy doesn't say anything about it. He orders two more whiskies, and then passes one over to Jon, until it knocks gently against Jon’s beer.

Jon takes it, stares at it, tips it back toward Tommy and raises his chin in acknowledgement. He pours it back.

“I’m sharing but my roommate's off banging his, like, ho in this area code,” Jon says. “Come on.”

Tommy ... shouldn't go. This never takes them anywhere good, does it? They always end up in the same place, angry and sarcastic and Tommy is so exhausted from it. Tommy should definitely stay here and drink and go back to the room he's sharing with, fuck, he doesn't remember. David, probably, or Sam. “Yeah,” he says, and drops most of the cash in his wallet on the bar.

“No talking,” Jon snaps at him, and it makes Tommy smile; he has to turn away to hide it.

Jon’s room is cramped and messy; he can't have been here more than eight hours but everything he owns seems to be spread across the floor. “Jesus, Lovett,” Tommy says, and kicks some purple briefs farther towards the wall. “What a fucking disaster area.”

“I think I told you to shut the fuck up,” Jon says, and shoves Tommy towards the messier bed, knees up onto it to follow him. Jon’s kiss is more teeth than anything else, and Tommy digs his nails into Jon’s back through his stupid, worn-thin t-shirt. Maybe if he claws enough he can ruin it, he thinks, and then lets up and pushes it up and off Jon instead.

Jon must sense blood in the water. Tommy's weaker than he should be, tonight. “Hope and _fucking_ change, like, big fucking talk from you assholes with no idea of how to govern.” Tommy opens his mouth and Jon shoves three fingers into it. “No talking, I'm talking.”

He doesn't, though; he seems to have worn himself out, just with that. Tommy sucks on his fingers because they're there, and then his thumb when Jon switches position to grab Tommy by the chin, holding him while he rolls them over. Tommy manages not to bite him, but he doesn't think Jon is going to give him any gold stars for that.

“Just fucking stay right there,” Jon says, and gets up long enough to strip, and to peel Tommy's shoes and his pants off. Tommy reaches for him just to prove Jon can't tell him what to do, and Jon shoves him down again, hand hard on his collarbone, close to his throat.

“Arrogant fucking—” Jon spits out, which is fucking rich coming from him, and it makes Tommy push against the hand and yank Jon down to kiss again. He hears himself growling into Jon’s mouth and he doesn't stop it.

“When we beat you,” Jon says, “I’m going to fly over to Chicago or wherever the fuck your candidate is giving his concession speech, and I'm going to push you down and fuck your throat so hard you're hoarse on all the morning news shows the next day. You'll be doing your mea culpa rounds, ‘we're all going to unite behind the Democratic nominee,’ and everyone listening will know.”

Tommy wants that now. He wants—he wants a lot of things he can't have. Ten hours of sleep, a fresh vegetable of any kind, a sense that this isn't all a huge fucking waste of time and energy. He can't have any of that yet, but he can yank Jon by the hips until his cock brushes Tommy's lips, and suck him down.

“Just—like—this,” Jon agrees, planting his knees around Tommy so he can thrust, head of his cock rocking against Tommy's palate. He goes too deep on purpose, Tommy thinks; he likes it when Tommy chokes a little. Tommy likes it too, but he's not going to tell Jon that.

Tommy digs his nails into Jon’s ass to hear him groan, drags them down Lovett's thighs. He likes marking Jon; he likes thinking that if Jon wants to go fuck some other staffer or some civilian, even, he's going to have these marks on him to explain. Because—because fuck Jon, that's why. That's the reason.

He runs the side of his thumb across Jon’s hole and Jon’s hips stutter. “Fucking—fine,” Jon says, and climbs off him, heading for his duffle bag. Tommy grits his teeth. He wasn't done yet, _actually_.

But Jon climbs back on with lube and condoms and fine, Tommy can go with that. He moves to get up and Jon shoves him again, says, "How fucking stupid are you guys? I said don't fucking move." Jon’s chest is heaving and his eyes are shiny and Tommy doesn't fucking move. He lets Jon roll the condom onto him and slick it up, and doesn't say anything when Jon just straddles him like that, no other prep at all. _Your funeral_ , he thinks.

It might be Tommy's funeral, though. He has to squeeze his eyes shut and clench his fists against the tightness of it, almost painful. He can't imagine how it feels from Jon’s end and doesn't much want to. If Jon wants to hurt himself on Tommy's cock, that's his fucking problem.

He opens one eye, though, long enough to see that Jon's face is more determined than pained.

By the time he sinks down all the way, Tommy's feeling fucking amazing. He doesn't risk saying anything; Jon has, once or twice, gotten mad enough to just leave, and Tommy wants this fuck way too much for that to happen.

He puts his hands on Jon’s hips instead, digs his fingers in and tries to pull Jon into movement, any movement. Jon glares at him, and he switches one hand to Jon’s flagging dick, instead, and watches Jon’s breathing change. “Fucking—” Jon says, but he must be out of adjectives for the moment, because he just starts rocking above Tommy, hands braced on Tommy's chest.

“Hate your fucking shoulders,” Jon says. “Your goddamn fucking jaw. ‘Look at me, I'm a walking Ken doll, I would have thrown you in a recycling bin in middle school because you made me question my burgeoning sexuality.’”

Tommy doesn't know, has never known, how Jon manages to rant while getting fucked. Maybe he's had lots of practice.

“Never threw anyone in a recycling bin,” Tommy says, and it doesn't sound right, so he tries again. “I hate your fucking face, though.”

For some reason, that makes Jon smile, and fight to hide it. Tommy's only idly stroking him, because he wants this to last. He wants to watch Jon’s thick thighs moving, but he can't keep his gaze off Jon’s stupid face.

“Hate your arms,” Jon says. "Hate your mouth. Hate your stupid jokes and your dumb donkey laugh and your, your taste in whisky is atrocious, and I hate your fucking tiny dick," and Tommy squeezes Jon’s, but it looks like Jon interprets that more as a reward than a punishment.

“Hate your—everything, you—” Jon’s arms are shaking now, his mouth opening and closing, his eyebrows screwing up like he's focusing on—coming, or not coming, or not coming until he finishes telling Tommy everything he hates.

Tommy thinks, _I hate every bone in your body except mine_ , because it's the joke, right, it's the classic line, but he doesn't say it. Jon wouldn't be impressed by it, anyway. It's a dumb cliche.

“I hate your loose fucking grip,” Jon grits out, and Tommy lets go of him altogether, smirking up at him.

“I hate how fucking stubborn and contrary—” Jon doesn't finish, because Tommy yanks him down and kisses him, both of them straining. He knows it's a painful stretch for Jon and he doesn't care. He wants Jon’s fucking tongue in his mouth.

“I hate you too,” Tommy assures him, and licks behind his teeth. Jon shudders against him, come spurting onto Tommy's belly, and Tommy rolls them over and holds Jon’s legs back and fucks him as hard as he can.

“Don't hate this as much,” Jon says, breathless, and Tommy laughs despite himself, face tucked into Jon’s leg, and comes.

They untangle slowly, panting. The room feels hot and humid and Tommy doesn't want to move; the alcohol is hitting him hard now. He manages to get the condom off but any further movement seems impossible, even to get his leg off of Jon’s.

"Get out of my room," Jon says after a minute.

"No, fuck you," Tommy says, and they're silent again.

***

Tommy wakes up when light hits his face from the sliver between the heavy hotel curtains. “Fuck, it’s—” He squints at the clock. “It's fucking nine in the morning.” He hasn't slept that long or that well since ... fucking college, probably.

“Shut up,” Jon says, and rolls over. Tommy flops back onto the bed. He doesn't have anywhere to be; he'll be kicked out again if he tries to get into the makeshift office.

“Room service?” he says, quiet, afraid it's the last straw that will make Jon actually angry.

“Only if we put it on a card,” Jon says. “My campaign's not paying you to eat fucking waffles.”

“Deal,” Tommy says, and snags the menu off the nightstand. “Fuck, they've got everything.”

“Of course they've got everything, it's their whole profit margin packed into a leather folder.” Jon grabs it from him. “Order me two diet Cokes, the thing with the two eggs and two sausages and two pieces of toast, hashbrowns, and ketchup.”

“Yes, master,” Tommy mumbles, but he calls their order in and goes to take a piss.

Jon’s got briefs on when he gets back—the same purple pair that were on the floor last night, which doesn't bode well for their cleanliness—and Tommy reaches for his own, fishing them out of his slacks. “I’m borrowing a t-shirt,” he says, and grabs one that doesn't smell too bad. It's probably a sleep shirt for Jon, because it's not a bad fit on him, and when he looks up, Jon’s staring at him with his tongue braced on his lower lip.

“Uh,” Tommy says, and climbs onto the bed and gets a hand into the purple briefs.

They get off just in time. Jon shoves Tommy down again—Tommy is definitely going to have to, like, deal with that at some point—and pays for the food himself, with a card from his own wallet. Tommy wonders idly what the room-service guy thinks of a dude in purple underwear with, frankly, very obvious staining paying for the food, but he's hidden well behind the door, so it's not his problem if Hillary's campaign has some kind of low-key scandal.

“Eat your fucking health food,” Jon says, shoving Tommy's plate of egg-white spinach omelette at him. “I knew you jerks thought you were better than us but wow. Coastal elite, much?”

Tommy's too sated and hungry to respond beyond flipping Jon the bird. They're both busy eating, anyway, and Jon pours back one and then the second cans of diet Coke as Tommy watches out of the corner of his eye. Jon’s throat looks good like that.

There's chewing, and some clinking silverware noises, and Jon’s throat working as he downs his aspartame, but otherwise the room is silent. “You, uh,” Tommy says, finally, “probably have to get back to work soon.”

“Not today,” Lovett says. “It's a—” He waves his hands instead of answering, fork still in one and hashbrowns spilling from it. “You know.”

Tommy doesn't, but he doesn't really care, anyway. “There's, like—that museum is only like three blocks from here,” he says, and he knows it doesn't sound fucking casual, and he really, really knows it doesn't sound like something he should be saying to someone he mostly hates. Might hate. Used to hate.

Jon’s jaw works, and his eyes tighten, and then he takes a deep breath and lets it out. “One-day truce,” he says. “Before we destroy your campaign and you have to go do PR for a shitty midlevel golf equipment company in Peoria.”

“Until we kick your ass and offer you a pity job,” Tommy says. “One-day truce.”

Lovett passes him a sausage. Tommy accepts it.

***

Hillary concedes in early June. Tommy doesn’t know what to text Jon. He types forty things—mean things, conciliatory things, smug things. Sex things. 

He doesn’t send anything, and doesn’t send anything, and then it’s July and August and Hillary’s campaign has joined them on four campaign stops, but he hasn’t seen Jon at any of them. 

He tries not to think about it too much. His candidate is going to be president. That’s what matters. He’s going to fucking crush McCain, if Tommy has anything to say about it.

***

January 21st is a whirl of activity. Tommy’s had two months of near-peace, by campaign standards. He’s been working out again, and cooking sometimes, and seeing his friends. He’s moved into a house with a bunch of other staffers in Georgetown. He cried at the inauguration. 

“Okay! We hired, like, a million people, so just—everybody be fucking welcoming, okay?” Favs shouts, and there’s a mix of cheers and groans from the campaign staff. “Seriously! I hear about one hazing incident, I’m telling the big guy!” 

That calms them, and Tommy waits to be released from the meeting. He wants to get his desk in order. He wants to get his reporters on the line. He has so much to do. 

The first new person he sees in the bullpen is—is of fucking course—Jon Lovett. They both stop, staring at each other. “Oh, hey!” Favs comes up behind Tommy, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Tommy, this is Jon Lovett, just started. He’s in Cody’s office, I think. Yeah. He’s our jokes guy, he’s so funny, you can’t even believe it.”

“Uh, yeah,” Tommy says. “Great.”

“Great,” Jon says. His face is shuttered; Tommy can’t read it. Surely Jon knew, taking this job, that Tommy would be here; he knew he’d be surprising him. He could have texted. He should have fucking texted. 

“Welcome,” Tommy says, and then, gritting his teeth, “Don’t fuck up.”

“Not quite the vibe we’re going for, Tommy!” Favs says, but Tommy’s already leaving. His desk isn’t anywhere near here. He’ll just—keep his distance.

***

They get paired on a speech by early February. Tommy blames—everything, everyone. Obama. The American people. God, possibly. 

“You are not going to fuck this up for me,” Jon hisses as soon as the assignment is given out. 

“I’m actually good at my job, unlike you guys who lost,” Tommy snipes back. Favs, who’s too close for comfort, frowns at him, and Tommy shuts up. There will be plenty of time for sniping when they’re exchanging notes on this fucking speech. 

Or not. “I don’t need you,” Jon tells him. “Give me your notes and go, you know, fuck yourself.”

“Not how it works,” Tommy says, although he should just go with it. Getting out of this sounds like heaven. But—but the president is going to give this speech. He’s not letting it be fucked up because two staffers can’t pretend not to hate each other. “We’ll brainstorm the outline together and then I’ll leave you alone until you have a draft. Deal?”

“Why would I make that deal?” Jon says. “Give me an outline and I’ll give you a draft, Vietor. Get out of my fucking face.”

Jon getting angry is Pavlovian for Tommy’s dick, and the West Wing is not the fucking place for him to be dealing with that. “No deal. I’ll meet you at the Hamilton at eight and we’ll hash it out. If you’re not there—that’s your problem, but I used to room with your boss, so like—whatever, man.”

If looks could kill, Tommy would be fried to a crisp. They can’t, so he just deals with the way his stomach roils to see Jon this furious, and walks out of the room. 

Jon’s at the Hamilton when Tommy gets there. He’s sipping, for once, just one of his Miller Lites. It looks embarrassing in this setting. “I’ve decided you didn’t actually mean to threaten my job,” Jon says, before Tommy’s even sat down. “Because you’re a prick, but you’re not that kind of prick. Am I wrong?”

“I—what?” Tommy asks. 

“‘I used to room with your boss,’” Jon says. “Did you mean, ‘I can get you fired because we used to fuck and then I got bored of it,’ or not?”

Tommy blinks. “Fuck” hangs in the rarefied air of the dining room, ugly and out of place. “I meant I’d get him to yell at you,” Tommy says. He doesn’t know what to say to the other part. 

“Right, well. You should be more cautious with your words, spokesman Vietor,” Jon says. “People might think you’re more of a jackass than you are.”

“I didn’t get bored,” Tommy says. 

Jon clenches his fist on the table. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t—you weren’t around,” Tommy says. “After the museum.” 

The waiter interrupts them, and Tommy orders a whisky without thinking and regrets it immediately. He wants his full faculties, to write and to spar with Jon. 

“Okay,” Jon says, in a loud, topic-shifting voice. “Speech outlining. Let’s go.”

“Jon—” Tommy starts. Jon glares at him. “Lovett. Let’s just talk about it once and then we don’t have to talk about it again.”

“Talk about it and I’ll leave,” Jon says. “You said to meet you here, I met you here. I’m trying to do work; you’re trying to—sexually harass me, basically. Just tell me your fucking ideas for the speech.”

Tommy sits back, stung. Anger’s rising in him again, and he fights it down. He wants the whisky after all; as soon as it’s set in front of him, he takes a too-large sip and coughs.

“Classy,” Lovett says. “Do you have ideas or don’t you?”

Right now would be a good moment to count to ten. Tommy does it in his head, and pulls out his notepad.

***

By the time they’ve hashed out most of the structure for the speech, and some starting points on the language, the atmosphere has dropped from “close to declaring war” down to merely charged. Tommy can handle that, although his body is —confused, about the whole thing, and thinks that any charge between him and Jon is some kind of promise to be fulfilled. He takes deep breaths and keeps himself tight against the table, hidden from view. 

Jon sits back and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “That’s all I can do tonight,” he says. “Can we—I need to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Tommy says. It comes out softer, gentler than he meant it. Jon looks young like this, like he needs to be tucked in. He clears his throat. “Yeah, sure. That was really good progress.”

The waiter, creepily observant, shows up suddenly with the check. “I’ve got it,” Tommy says, and Jon sits up straighter, glaring.

“I can get it,” he says.

Tommy rolls his eyes, and hands his card off before Jon can stop him. “It’s fine. I forced you to come here.”

Jon splutters. “Just because you—that’s not—this isn’t a fucking _date_ , Vietor.”

“I know it’s not,” Tommy says. He’s tired too, his head swimming. “If it were, you’d be going home with me.”

Jon opens and shuts his mouth, sucks a long breath in through his nose. His jaw works. He doesn’t say anything until the waiter steps away again. “You should be so fucking lucky,” he says.

“I know that, too,” Tommy says, and leaves.

***

He regrets it immediately. He regrets it until he falls asleep, far too late, and he regrets it as soon as he wakes up in the morning. He regrets it in his dreams, too, he thinks; they were disjointed and anxious.

He regrets it immensely at the office, springing nervously out of his chair every time the door opens until Dan pulls him aside to ask if he’s feeling okay. “Do you need to go home?”

“No, I—no. Thanks. I’ll, uh. I’ll just go get a snack in the OEOB or something. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Dan tells him, seriously. “If you’re stressed, you should talk to someone, okay? We don’t want you to burn out. Or to say the wrong thing to a reporter because you didn’t get enough sleep.”

Tommy resists putting his hand up to the bags under his eyes. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ll be back in fifteen.”

“Make it forty,” Dan says, and glances at the clock. “Well, thirty. But not before then!”

Tommy walks to the OEOB in a haze. Everything’s so good and so fucked at the same time. This was supposed to be the best thing ever to happen to him—everything was supposed to fall into place when they won. It wasn’t supposed to be a rising tide of vicious Republicans organizing against them, and reporters who think he’s a stupid kid, and his ill-fated campaign hookup haunting his steps.

So, of course, Jon’s in the caf when he gets there, with a half-apple loaded with peanut butter. 

Tommy ignores him, in the way you ignore anything that’s lighting up your every sense and nerve ending, in the way you ignore a gunshot behind you. He buys a ham sandwich and a pickle, and some carrots and celery, because he’s got the campaign in his head now and it makes him crave vegetables. 

Jon’s standing at the door when he tries to leave. “You—over here,” Jon says. He walks just ahead of Tommy, like he’s sure Tommy will follow. Tommy supposes he’s right.

Jon stops them at a door, swipes his pass and pushes Tommy inside. It’s a little nothing of an office. “Is this where Ainsley Hayes works?” Tommy asks, and Jon’s eyes flash—actually flash, although Tommy supposes it’s more the light catching as he widens them than some magic working on his irises.

“Do not—do not be cute,” Jon says, grimly. 

“Okay,” Tommy says. He eyes the desk; it looks uninhabited, at least. They aren’t walking in on some important business. 

Jon leans against the door. Collapses, really. He looks as tired as Tommy feels, and Tommy decides, watching him, not to try to ask why they’re in here. He has a feeling the explanation will come, if he gives it a minute. 

“You—I hate you so much,” Jon says. It hurts, hearing it. It hurts more than Tommy would have expected. They’ve said it to each other plenty; it didn’t hurt before. 

He turns away, rests his hands and his bag lunch on the desk. “Okay. Sorry.”

“ _Sorry_ ,” Jon bursts out. “Sorry? For fucking what, Tommy?”

He doesn’t remember Jon calling him Tommy before. “I don’t know,” Tommy admits. “For pissing you off, I guess.” He thinks about going over to the other side of the desk, and decides it’s a coward’s move. He turns around, instead, rests his ass on the edge of it and tries his best to meet Jon’s eye. 

Jon’s got peanut butter just outside the corner of his mouth, a tiny glob of it. “Oh, you have—” Tommy says, and reaches for him. Jon shies away, and Tommy lets his arm drop, awkward. 

Tommy could feel angry, right now. It tickles the back of his mind. Mostly, though, he’s just tired. “I am sorry,” he says. “I should have called you, I guess. Texted. I don’t know, it was just—I thought you’d be at the next campaign stop. We must’ve done half a dozen stops with Hillary after she conceded, and you weren’t at any of them. I didn’t see you at the convention, either.”

“They—we could take buyouts,” Jon says. “I took a buyout.” 

“Oh,” Tommy says, and then, “You have some peanut butter on your cheek.”

Jon turns half away from him, scrubbing at his cheek with the back of his hand, reddening. “Great. Great. Terrific,” Jon mutters. “Doing really well in my fancy new White House job, huh? Piss off the communications department just by existing, can’t eat food. Too gay to function.”

Tommy laughs, loud in the quiet of the empty office. “You’re fine, Lovett. Everyone’s scared of how real it all is, it’s not just you. It’s the White House, it’s the big leagues.”

“Easy for you to say,” Jon huffs. “You came in with your whole clique. You all live in each other’s pockets and play basketball with the president. I’m just trying to get enough good jokes in that they might not fire me. You could be here for eight years and no one would ever consider whether you’re dead weight.”

Tommy jerks back from him. “You think I’m dead weight?” It’s nothing Tommy hasn’t thought himself, sometimes in the early morning when he hasn’t been able to fall asleep, but on someone else’s lips it’s—cold. Too real. 

He needs to fucking leave. He’d known—obviously he’d known Jon hated him, but it wasn’t—sometimes it didn’t feel like hate. It felt like something else. He’d let himself believe it was something else. “Get out of the way,” he says, and it comes out low and threatening. He snatches up his bag lunch, although he can’t imagine when he’ll feel hungry again ever, and moves to shove Jon away from the door.

“Fucking—of course you’re not,” Jon says. “Are you even listening? You’re the golden boy. You’re all the golden boys, but you especially.”

Tommy pauses, lets his hand rest on the wood of the door instead of pushing Jon’s shoulder. They’re too close, now, with Tommy’s stupid bag lunch between them. “You’re amazing at this,” Jon says, soft, not looking at him. “I’m lucky. It’s not the same. It’s fine. This isn’t my life’s ambition or anything, it’s just—hard, to be the new guy.” 

“This is a fucking rollercoaster,” Tommy mumbles, and Jon laughs. 

“That’s how I roll,” Jon says. “Get used to it.”

Tommy swallows, and turns his body closer into Jon’s. “I tried, before. But then you weren’t there. Hard to get used to that.” 

“I am pretty addictive,” Jon agrees, and quirks a smile at Tommy. Tommy smiles back at him, big and too revealing. He doesn’t care.

“You are,” he says, abruptly. “You are, and I missed you. I don’t—I don’t hate you at all, actually. Just, uh, so you know.”

Jon leans up and kisses him, soft, Tommy’s brown-bag lunch crinkling between them. “I guess I don’t hate you either,” Jon says, coming back down. “Mostly, you know.”

That’s all Tommy needs to hear. He drops the lunch on the floor and wraps both hands around Jon’s biceps, pushing him up against the door and leaning into him. Jon’s mouth feels just like he remembers it—maybe a bit better, after all this time and upheaval. “Your candidate still sucked,” he mumbles, and Jon laughs into his mouth.

“You’re very wrong,” Jon says, “but I’ll let it slide this time. If you make it up to me.”

Tommy looks over at the bare desk, and at Jon, and back at the desk. “This is not how I want to get fired from this job,” he says, finally. “Much as I—please let’s just meet up after work.”

“Deal,” Jon says. His voice is breathy, and it makes Tommy’s resolve weaken. “I’ll—it’s hard to get out of here but I’ll do my best. I’ll text you.”

“Yeah, same,” Tommy says. He thinks he can get away at a reasonable hour. Maybe he’ll tell Dan he’s sick after all. “Don’t, um—don’t change your mind and hate me again between now and this evening.”

“No promises,” Jon says, but there’s a smile in his voice.

***

Tommy’s house has about forty-seven staffers living in it, from his attempts to count. Or five, anyway, or sixteen, or a hundred. Tommy’s never there enough to care or notice. He has a room of his own; that’s all he needs, when he comes home to crash. 

That’s all he needs when Jon shows up, looking nervous, riding a bike. Tommy didn’t know Jon biked. It’s kind of hot. “Um, hey,” Jon says, when Tommy walks out to meet him. He’s locking it up, expertly, to Tommy’s porch. 

“You must be cold,” Tommy says, and hopes it sounds suave, because he doesn’t feel smooth at all. “Come in and warm up.”

“Oh, now I get the Vietor charm,” Jon says, but it isn’t biting. “Do you live in an actual frat?”

Tommy can see why Jon might have that impression, walking through the living room, and he steers them up the stairs faster. Tommy’s own room is tidy and monastic; he hasn’t had time to add more than necessities, but he has nice bedding and a sturdy armchair left over from Iowa. 

“Better,” Jon says, when Tommy shuts the door behind them. “I mean, it’s clear that your total lack of personality extends to your housing as well—” Jon stops and swallows. “Sorry. Sorry. Let me try that again.”

“Uh, please do,” Tommy says. His throat is tight, and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

“Your room is nice,” Jon says. “Very neat. I like the stripes on the thing.”

Something about that makes Tommy smile. “Are you good at being nice to other people? Is it just me you can’t do it with?”

“Nice is—maybe not in my top five qualities,” Jon says. “But it’s, uh. I’m working on it.” He turns his gaze on Tommy, instead of the room. “I could be nice about you way easier than I could be about your Pottery Barn cell.” 

Tommy supposes he could be offended. He supposes he could be angry. Nothing’s hitting him besides the urge to laugh, though. “Okay,” he says. 

“You look good. You look way less like you’re on death’s door than you did in May, and you were pretty hot in May, for the record. You’re all—boyish again. It’s, ah. You look very debauchable.”

“Okay,” Tommy repeats. “Debauch me.” 

Jon pauses. Tommy watches the tip of his tongue come out to lick his lips. “I—this is weirder than—”

“Tough.” Tommy can’t keep the smile off his face. “I’m not going to fight you, Lovett. Uh. Jon.” 

“Lovett,” Jon says, and when Tommy raises an eyebrow, “Really, it’s—it’s what my friends actually call me.” 

Tommy doesn’t want to be Jon’s friend, but they can have this discussion later. He steps into Jon’s space, taking advantage of the door to block Jon in. “My candidate won,” he says, and Jon’s mouth tightens. “But I think I liked your idea better than mine, for if—you know, if it had gone the other way.”

Jon’s face is blank for a moment, and then he must get it, because his hands come up to Tommy’s hips, finally. “Get on the bed, then.”

They’re both in casual clothing; Tommy changed when he got home, and Jon must keep his suits at the office. Tommy yanks his t-shirt over his head before he lies down. It’s never warm enough in here, but he knows they’ll be overheated soon. “Fucking—that right there,” Jon says. “All your basketball-with-the-President musculature, it’s sickening, frankly.”

“Not your best version of nice,” Tommy says, grinning. 

“Yeah, well,” Jon says, and peels out of his jeans. His thighs are red from the cold underneath, and when Jon climbs up on the bed, Tommy puts his hands on them and feels how chilled they are. 

He wants to offer that they can get under the blankets, but before he can, Jon’s kneeling up over his face, and that seems much more important. “Reporters are going to ask why you’re so hoarse tomorrow,” Jon promises, looking down at Tommy with the head of his cock braced on Tommy’s lips. 

“Okay,” Tommy says, breathless, and then, before Jon can move, “You can still—that’s its own kind of nice. The talking. The sexy shit-talking is, uh, yeah.”

Jon’s biting back a smile when he feeds his cock into Tommy’s mouth. “Sexy shit-talking, I can do,” he says. “Your mouth was fucking made for this.”

Tommy doesn’t think he can nod safely at this moment, so he flashes Jon a thumbs up. “You’re fucking ridiculous,” Jon murmurs, and rocks his hips, pushing farther into Tommy’s mouth. Tommy drops his hand; he has to concentrate, now, on not choking, on letting Jon fuck his throat. “Fucking hot and ridiculous and the whole Press Corps is going to know you let someone drill your throat. Everyone in the White House is gonna know.” 

He’s draped over Tommy, arms locked, and Tommy can’t stop looking at him, because he _can_ now. He doesn’t have to fake disinterest. He can dig his nails into Jon’s thighs because he likes Jon’s thighs.

Jon feels huge in his mouth; Tommy’s jaw is starting to ache, but he likes it, he likes Jon giving it to him like this. Jon’s losing the thread of his speech. In the old days, this is when he’d devolve, maybe, into telling Tommy all the things he hates about him. 

Today, it’s— “Obsessed with your fucking face, Tommy. And your shoulders. I want—I want you to fuck me and I’ll hold your shoulders the whole time. Your whole fucking torso is just, it’s unfair, is what it is. I know you spent that whole campaign eating garbage and you just, you look like a fucking wet dream. No, shut up, I don’t care about your opinion,” Jon says; maybe something had shown on Tommy’s face. “Just lie there and take my—take— _fuck_.”

Jon pushes in, down Tommy’s throat, and Tommy can’t breathe for long moments while Jon is coming. It’s terrifying and electrifying, and when Jon pulls out, Tommy grabs him by the hips and throws him down on the other side of the bed, crawls up over him. “I’m obsessed with you, too,” he says, and he hears the promised grit in his voice. “I’m obsessed with your thighs and your ass and your belly and your terrific, sarcastic brain. You need to not fuck off again. Okay?” 

“Okay. Yeah.” 

Jon’s still half knocked out from his orgasm, but Tommy doesn’t give him any time to adjust. “Hold my shoulders,” he says, and goes for the box under his bedframe.

***

The speech is a success. “Good work,” Favs says, clapping them both on their backs. “Glad you two could figure out how to work together after all.” 

Tommy shoots Jon a half-smile around Favs. “Lovett’s not so bad once you get to know him,” he says. “He grows on you. Like a fungus.”

“Tommy’s all right for a Richie Rich knockoff,” Jon says, in just as cheery a tone. “He mostly remembers not to drone on about the joys of yachting around us peasants.” 

“O … kay,” Favs says. “Well, as long as it works for you. Lovett, we’ve got a meeting to get to. Tommy, I’ll see you at the thing?”

Tommy tucks his hand in his pocket, aiming for casual. “Lovett should come to the thing,” he says. “He’s fun. He’d be fun.”

Favs smiles at that. “Sure. Sounds good. Lovett, we’ve got this standing drinks night—” His voice trails off as they wander away towards their meeting, and Tommy taps his knuckles on the wall. The wall of _the fucking White House_.

It’s all gonna be fine. Tommy has vegetables, slightly more sleep, and a boyfriend. They won.

**Author's Note:**

> The summary quote is recut from the original, which would have come out as a dependent clause or else had enough Obama content to present some confusion about Obama's role in the fic. [You can find the original quote in situ here](https://www.gq.com/story/barack-obama-preparing-for-third-term).


End file.
